Report from Autosport of 16th October 1986 -

NATIONAL RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP                                                         AUDI SPORT RALLY

REPORT: KEITH OSWIN-PHOTOGRAPHY: TONY NORTH

First among equals

"The Ford RS200s were very impressive, setting fastest time on every stage, with Stig Blomqvist claiming six of these, winning easily."

Alistair Sutherland and Andrew Wood have made the 1986 Marlboro/AUTOSPORT National Rally Championship one of the most absorbing contests ever. Throughout the season they have battled for seconds and it was a shame that, on Saturday’s Audi Sport Rally, one of them would lose the title race. Even then, the pair battled to the end, just 8secs apart, Sutherland holding the advantage when it mattered. They finished the season equal on points and it took a tie break to decide that Sutherland was the latest in a long line of worthy champions.
While these two battled for the crown, Stig Blomqvist calmly demolished the opposition to win at a canter with his works Ford RS200 while team-mate, Kalle Grundel, took third after a troubled day. The third Ford, that of Mark Lovell, finished in the trees but not before the new British Champion had shown his colleagues a clean pair of heels ...

At the start of the season, you would not have found many to predict that Alistair Sutherland, the clown prince of National rallying, would be in a position to take the Marlboro/Autosport Championship. In the past he has been his own worst enemy, seemingly unable to string together any sort of consistency, even though he was undeniably quick. But here was the fellow at scrutin-eering on Friday evening, taking careful stock of the opposition as he faced his sternest test to date. Andrew Wood had led the series almost from the start and would take the title unless Sutherland could score his third set of maximum championship points. The odds were stacked high against him.
And it was Wood who was the centre of attention for, after a successful secret test session the previous week, the GM Dealersport committee had taken the bold step of wheeling out their Astra 4S, the four-wheel drive, supercharged car that would have been their Group S contender had FISA not sent their plans down the drain earlier this season. The car was quick (over 4secs per mile quicker than the Manta 400 with virtually no test mileage behind it) and it would at least give Wood an even chance of fighting off the CBC Motorsport Metro 6R4 where the Manta would be slithering in its wake. The team also wanted to know if they had got their sums right before the project was mothballed!

"What is it like when you drive it hard?” asked Sutherland. “I don’t know,'- replied a pan faced Wood. “It’s so quick, you don’t need to drive it hard at ail ...” It was wind-up time!
The new car certainly turned heads as it prepared to make its world debut. It also confused the noise tester who aimed the meter at the rear of the car and wondered how the team had built such a quiet machine. No-one thought to point out that the exhaust pipe emerged from in front of the right rear wheel arch ...
Alistair Sutherland had to go right through to a tie-break before scooping the title.
A crisp autumn morning greeted the crews as they made their way to the start of the event at Loton Park hillclimb, where the early birds had gathered to watch the action. The previous night's frost had left the roads slippy and wet, while layers of mist clung to the hillsides, despite the warm sunshine that eventually brightened the day.

Alistair Sutherland had to go right through to a tie-break before scooping the title.

That short, 2 mile, blast saw Ford's trio take command, Blomqvist carefully threading his way to a one second advantage over Grundel and Lovell, tied for second place. John Brown's CTS/Artix Metro 6R4 was a couple of seconds adrift with Willie Rutherford and Sutherland tied. First blood (albeit only 2secs) had been taken by the Metro driver, although Wood had not been at home with the automatically variable torque split that the Mike Endean designed. X-Trac system in the Astra provides. Preset with 60 per cent of the drive to the rear wheels, a boost pressure switch operating from the throttle gives 72 per cent to the rear under deceleration to enable tight corners to be negotiated easily. However. Wood felt that he needed a bit more practice to be confident with the set up and so overrode the auto switch and ran for the rest of the day with the car locked at 60/ 40, a more settled configuration. There was once a time when, if you needed more traction, you fitted new tyres. . .

Andrew Wood wheeled out the new Astra 4S, after secret testing, but was toppled series lead at the very end.

Once into the forest, however, and the attention turned to the battle for the lead. Suddenly, Lovell came alive, the Ford charging hard into every corner in the most awesome display ever from the new British Champion. There was nothing at stake in Wales, no championship to chase, and just personal pride mattered. With the Lombard RAC Rally approaching, the slippery roads were an ideal place to compare his performance against Boreham's regular World Championship pairing. In Dyfnant, Lovell trimmed 5secs from Blomqvist and immediately took a slender lead in the event. Grundel had lost time when the car stalled after a spin before starting to encounter clutch problems. In Gartheiniog, the Lovell charge continued with a vengeance, Grundel only able to get within 7secs of the young upstart while Blomqvist’s gearbox was not so clever and he dropped time. Grundel was still having a miserable time. “I started that stage with no clutch at all and I am in hairpins with the wrong gear. The car goes blub, blub, blub and then gets away, but we are losing a lot of. time."
Reasonable excuses, therefore, but co-drivers, Bruno Berglund and Benny Melander were stunned when they saw Lovell’s times. He was now comfortably in front, 25secs clear of Blomqvist and 29 up on Grundel. And, with the Fords over half a minute clear of the rest after three stages, there were three events going on.
But it all went wrong for Lovell on the fourth stage when a tightening lefthander caught out the Ford and sent it rolling into the trees. The car would not come out easily and the rally was run although the damage was so slight that, when it was eventually extricated, the car was able to tackle three more stages for Pirelli to test tyres for the RAC Rally ...
Meanwhile, others were in difficulty. Rutherford was out of the event having discovered that the gearbox in the Sanyo Metro 6R4 had an intriguing tendency to select reverse when the driver had opted for fifth. It had shown the yellow card on the first stage but finally waved the red on the second stage, Rutherford eventually freeing the jammed ’box and crawling to the end, but then being caught by a Judge of Fact at the roadside. There were no arguments and Willie retired on the spot, although he tackled the remainder of the stages for testing. It has not been a happy season, in many ways, but his luck will hopefully change for the RAC Rally now that confirmation of his entry has been announced (see Special Stage).
By lunch time in Machynlleth, Blomqvist and Grundel were clear at the head of the field as their cars were refettled, while Wood now held the upper hand in the championship race. Just 6secs separated him from his rival and they were already well ahead of Brown so that ‘wild cards’ would not enter the points permutations. Allan Edwards's miserable season continued when the suspension collapsed on the first stage and the car was going no further.

With the Group A battle decided last time out, attention was focused this time on the two visitors, Mikael Sundstrom in the Peugeot 205 GTI and Ingvar Carlsson in the Mazda 323. Sundstrom’s driving had already thrilled the spectators as he threw the little racer into corners at outrageous angles, while the Mazda squad were again trying to find a cure for their weak gearboxes. It was Carlsson who led the category, the 323 looking good on the stages, while Sundstrom's car had already begun to show signs that all was not well. Smoke indicated a blown head gasket although that sort of thing was not to slow a Finn overmuch! The rally began to turn for home once again as Sutherland took a second back on the fifth stage, five more on the sixth but then dropped four on the long Gartheniog stage. Grundel had been forced to stop and change a puncture in the complex and so slipped to fourth behind the battling duo who were now just 3secs apart with two stages left in this intriguing championship. All through the season they have battled tooth and nail for the title and no-one was taking bets on the outcome. A handkerchief barely covered them in Scotland, the Isle of Mansell and Keilder, and it looked much the same here in Wales.
The retirements list continued to grow as the pace told on drivers throughout the field. Phil Collins destroyed the Brooklyn Cosworth in a big accident ("I was on a hiding to nothing whichever car I was in today," joked Collins' erstwhile co-driver, Roger Freeman, afterwards), while a silly excursion sent Trevor Smith OTL at lunch although he too joined the ranks of the testing masses for the afternoon. Dougie Watson-Clark also found his way into a ditch while Robin Phillips destroyed his Golf in a barrel roll early in the day on a bad bump. Sanjiv Shah went off on the same corner as Lovell, while Simon Davison blew a head gasket. With Steve Davies carless after his Quip shunt and therefore on spectator control duty, it was left to Callum Guy to net top Volkswagen Junior Team honours after a fraught season.

"Mark Lovell confirmed his coming of age by leaving his senior Ford team mates in the RS200's wake. He retired, however."

By the time the cars returned to Dyfnant, spectators had gathered in their hordes to catch a glimpse of this fascinating contest. Their enthusiasm had doubtless been fired by the appearance for the first time on a round of the National series of Brian and Liz Patterson's bulletin service, such a popular feature of the Shell Oils RAC Open Championship.
News of the cut and thrust battle for the Marlboro/Autosport title had drawn the crowds to watch the final stages and the organisers had to delay proceedings while they tactfully and efficiently steered the unknowing to safer positions. And they then had plenty to enjoy ways that crews opted to tackle the hazard. Blomqvist arrived in a clamour of noise, flinging the Ford through the corner with panache while Wood’s Astra spat flame in great jets as the Scot tried to keep a charging Sutherland at bay. Grundel nearly overshot for the second time in the rally but had the car in reverse before it had stopped going forwards and was quickly away, while the arrows fell victim to Brown's Metro, destined for only its third finish of the season. Sundstrom’s smoking Peugeot deserved to have been resting peacefully on its trailer by now but instead it was being flung from side to side under braking as the Finn hurled it into the
corner. “This racing engine is not so good, you know, but we have to develop something for next season. It just makes it more interesting." Quite ...
And Sundstrom was about to inherit the Group A award as the demise of Ingvar Carlsson was imminent. The Mazda had been quietly impressive up to now and arrived at the tricky corner in perfect balance. Carlsson swung through the junction, grabbed a gear and bang went another gearbox in a cloud of smoke.

“I want to put some more miles on the gearbox," explained team boss, Achim Warmbold, prior to the start. “I don’t know how we shall do on the RAC Rally, but our car must be right for the Monte. ’’ There is still a lot of work to do before then, it seems.
Andrew Wood shook his head in disbelief when he saw that, despite his efforts, Sutherland had forced his way past on that penultimate stage. Not only that but the gap was 6secs, almost certainly too much to retrieve on the final two miler back at Loton Park. He had started the season with the aim of getting miles under his belt and ended it by challenging for the National title. Now, when he thought he was almost home and dry, he had been robbed.
Sutherland, refuting all suggestions that the CBC car now had a full blown 'international spec’ engine (it was claimed to have 334bhp, just 6bhp less than Wood’s Astra), was tense. “Come on,” he said to co-driver, Peter Watts. “Let’s get this last one over with so I can relax!" And so the convoy headed for the hillclimb course once again ...
There were no last stage dramas this time, however, and with an extra 2secs advantage, Sutherland produced the goods to clinch the title by 8secs and a tie-break. Grundel was quickest over the Loton Park stage and managed to move ahead of Wood for third, a small consolation prize for the likeable Swede whose outgoing sense of humour is a perfect balance to the reticence of his more senior team mate.

It was an emotional finish, with CBC boss, Alan Clegg, moved almost to tears as he realised what the team had done. Under the banner of Pace Engineering and with Malcolm Patrick at the wheel, Clegg had been champion team leader in 1982. But having come from virtually nowhere, Sutherland and Watts were enjoying victory for the first time.
The event rounded off the most exciting series for many years and the battle between Wood and Sutherland kept it alive to the very last yard. All that remains is to see how Sutherland uses a title that has come his way through a growing maturity ...